When the Shelter Closes

On the opening (and closing) of an emergency shelter in the Quad Cities

When the Shelter Closes

Last week, plunging temperatures and an incredible flurry of advocacy in Rock Island and throughout the Quad Cities led to the creation of an emergency shelter for people living on the streets.

On Thursday, it was decided that Project NOW would operate an emergency shelter out of Rock Island’s Martin Luther King Center from Friday until Monday. By Friday night, dozens of people had a cot, staff from various agencies and a slew of volunteers had signed up to provide meals, and a staggering amount of donations—clothing, food, and essential items—was rolling in.

It was a moment worth celebrating.

The community had responded to the need, coming together to say, “These are our streets. And no one will freeze on our streets this weekend.”

What a beautiful statement.

But now the weekend’s almost over. Which highlights what the community won’t say.

It will not say, “No one will freeze on our streets this winter.”

Just as it will not say, “No one will need to sleep on our streets this year.”

I’ve now seen this attitude everywhere I’ve lived. In towns of a thousand and cities of a million, in liberal bubbles and conservative strongholds, on the West and East Coasts and seemingly everywhere in between. But in each place, the affordability of housing is the determining factor in how many people are on the street or in shelters. Which doesn’t seem to be the case in the Quad Cities, a community generally viewed as pretty affordable.

There is a reason for this, beyond the fact that terms like affordable are always relative. Beyond the fact that housing in our society will always cost as much as the market will allow.

And the reason is that the Quad Cities is not a community.

It’s four, really five, distinct cities.

It’s an uneasy alliance, a marriage of geographic and economic convenience, of dozens of cities and towns. Of hundreds of neighborhoods. Of hundreds of HOAs seeking to keep the riff raff out and the return on investment high.

Because “Quad Cities” works well as a marketing gimmick. Not so well when each city is vying to attract the most affluent populations. And to rid itself of the poorest.

The result is that we talk past each other. Every city’s government officials and many of its residents would acknowledge that we should do something about the ballooning unhoused population, which has mirrored national trends as the cost of living generally and cost of housing specifically have decimated the most vulnerable populations. But they are unwilling to admit their own role in this.

In their eyes, the problem is visible homelessness. And what they really mean by that is that they don’t want to see it.

But the underlying problem is not visible homelessness.

The problem is not even homelessness, which puts the blame on those living on the street and falsely implies that these people have no homes.

The problem is that so many people are being forced out of their housing. It is the systemic unhousing of the poor.

This difference might seem subtle, even semantic. But it flips the entire question around. We stop asking the question, ‘Should we open an emergency shelter for this weekend?”

We start answering the question, “How do we prevent this need in the first place?”

Because right now, the Quad Cities, this would-be community is mired in contradiction. This is happening everywhere, but it seems especially pronounced here. I’ve never lived anywhere simultaneously doing so much and so little for its unhoused population than the Quad Cities.

I say this because there are social service workers, shelter volunteers, teachers, librarians, a handful of church officials, a handful of small business owners, a smattering of pro bono lawyers, unhoused people themselves, and many people outside these lanes who are moved to act. Who exhaust themselves every day in service to those without stable housing. Perhaps many more in service to the idea that we need not live and die as islands.

And I’m in awe of these people.

Which makes it so maddening that nothing changes systemically.

Because truly addressing the rise in people sleeping on the streets means addressing the precarity of housing in the Quad Cities. Which means recognizing the fact that some of those without stable housing in December were among the dozens—sometimes hundreds—of tenants in court facing eviction each week in October. And some of these were getting laid off from jobs in August.

It involves recognizing that disinvestment in the West End of Davenport and Rock Island is directly related to investment in these cities’ downtown entertainment districts.

Recognizing that the vacant buildings and lots in the heart of each city are directly related to the sprawl out into the countryside.

Recognizing that many of those reaping the benefits of government subsidies—the property managers receiving tax write-offs, the small business owners receiving grants, the developers and homeowners piping water, drawing power, and driving roads to former farmland near the TBK complex—are the same ones who decry government subsidy being used toward affordable housing efforts.

Recognizing the litany of gutless elected officials who refuse to point this out.

Who claim to represent us.

And maybe they do.

Because this could all be different.

As a community, we could ensure that the torrent of people forced to sleep on the street was reduced to a trickle.

We could do this by building more truly affordable housing.

And by zoning all new development for apartments, duplexes, triplexes, and mixed-use buildings.

And by taxing the owners of vacant buildings and land. And granting first right of purchase to organizations and neighborhood associations that will operate them as community land trusts and permanent real estate cooperatives. That will not put profit at the center of their mission.

There are countless things we could do to make housing more affordable.

But those in positions of power go on saying that they’re doing enough.

That other cities should do more.

That housing is complicated.

And maybe they’re right.

Because we have no regional approach to housing.

And we have no regional approach to the unhoused.

And we’ll keep on patting our elected officials on the back long after the shelter closes tomorrow.

And when the news comes in that another person has died, we won’t feel sadness that it happened. But relief that it happened somewhere else.

There’s nothing complicated about that.